Robots Are Already Replacing Us

JIMMY FALLON

Let’s face it: The robots are coming. Before we know it, we’re all going to be replaced by mechanical versions of ourselves. And a lot of people might find this scary—but not me.

For one thing, do you have any idea how much free time I’m going to have? I’ll have a robot to do my job for me. Instead of getting up early, rushing to work, sitting in meetings for hours, and then hosting a show every night, here’s how my typical day will go: sleep until noon, go to the gym, take a bath, kick back with a crossword puzzle and a tall glass of buttermilk, get caught up on Homeland, eat an omelet, play with my dog, eat another omelet, flip through the SkyMall catalog, take another bath, eat one last omelet, then fall asleep in my waterbed by 11 pm with Sounds of the Rainforest wafting from my white-noise machine. In other words, life will be perfect. (Also, I’ll never go to the gym—that part was a lie.)

On the weekends, I’ll hang out with my robot buddy. (His name will be Blarvex 840. I’ll call him Jim.) We’ll walk my dog together along the West Side Robot Motorway—I’ll sip a Jamba Juice, he’ll munch playfully on a handful of loose bolts. He’ll tell me how things are going at the show. And I’ll tell him about all the projects I finally have time to work on now that he’s replaced me at Late Night. Important projects I’ve been putting off for years—like my still-unfinished version of Leisure Suit Larry: The Musical; or my Brady Bunch fanfic novel, 50 Shades of Greg; or my quest to finally master C++ so I can finish that program to help catalog my VHS library. Or my tireless campaign to legalize heroin.

After we’re done hanging out, we’ll head our separate ways—he to his industrial-grade docking station on the Lower East Side, I to my apartment building filled with Scandinavian furniture and carbon-based life-forms. And I’ll watch him as he walks away, looking very much like me—just with slightly smoother skin and more manageable hair (almost too manageable, if you ask me; it’s actually sort of creepy). And I’ll smile and I’ll think to myself, I really like that dude.

And then my dog will be like, you know he’s a robot and not a dude, right? And I’ll be like, when we get home you’re going straight to your crate.

The bottom line is, let’s stop fearing robots and start getting excited about them. When they’re finally running the world, everything will be better—including my ratings. Because Robot Me will be funnier than I am, he’ll look thinner in a suit, and he’ll be better at interviewing guests. I can’t wait to meet him.—Jimmy Fallon

Robot Replacement

MUSICIAN

Robots today can play the violin or trumpet; they’ve even formed a rock band called the Trons. But while those mecha-maestros can only parrot preprogrammed tunes, a four-armed marimba virtuoso at Georgia Tech named Shimon can do more: It can listen to other musicians, analyze what they’re doing, and improvise alongside them like Thelonious Monk. It has played gigs across the US and was featured on The Colbert Report; it also passed a musical Turing test, duping audiences into believing they were listening to a live player.

To Shimon’s creator, roboticist and musician Gil Weinberg, the robot is a way of creating new kinds of music we’d never hear otherwise. That’s why he programmed Shimon not only with “human” musical concepts like tempo and style but also with a healthy dose of superhuman talents utilizing genetic algorithms and fractals. The result? “The more I work on its improvising algorithms,” Weinberg says, “the more its playing sounds as if it’s a musician with soul.” —Judy Dutton

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

COP

They call him Big Jim. It’s an apt name, given his 485-pound heft and heavy-duty arsenal: rubber bullets, shotgun shells, tear gas, and video cameras that can convey to human backup whether the coast is clear. As a robotic member of police departments in Lane County, Oregon, Big Jim is designed to defuse bombs and has been used to infiltrate barricaded buildings and locate injured people—all while keeping human officers out of harm’s way. As detective Ralph Burks put it, “It’s a great piece of equipment for rendering safe an improvised explosive device.” —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

THERAPIST

Spilling your guts to a toaster may not be as much of a stretch as you think. Last decade, Dutch psychologists Jaap Hollander and Jeffrey Wijnberg unveiled MindMentor.com, site of the world’s first robot therapist. Patients logged in to the website, handed over their credit card number, and then typed in their problem—which, under MindMentor’s guidance process, they eventually condensed into no more than eight words. MindMentor analyzed the issues and responded with follow-up questions like “How did that argument with your father make you feel?” or “Did your marriage have happier moments in the past?” By the end of the one- to two-hour session, patients declared on average that their problem was 47 percent solved.

MindMentor is currently on sabbatical due to lack of funding, although new robot therapists may soon fill the void—particularly in the field of autism. The University of Southern California’s Bandit robot has been researched to hone social skills in youngsters with autism by encouraging them to mimic its movements in games of Simon Says. The furry, soft-eared Popchilla, which syncs with iPad apps, teaches the children to respond to facial expressions. In certain ways, robots are better equipped to break through to these patients than we are, says Popchilla’s cocreator, Seema Patel. “For kids with autism, humans can be unpredictable and intimidating,” she says. “Robots, on the other hand, are simple. When Popchilla’s angry, its eyes glow red and its ears lay flat against its head. It’s very obvious.” —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

ARTIST

Machines are pros at copying images, but can they create original works of art? In 2008 Nebraska painters Doug Marx and Luke Kelly decided to find out by building the Vangobot (pronounced “Van Gogh bot”). Cobbled together from a Linux server, Arduino boards, and a paint mixer, Vangobot operates almost like a sloppy inkjet printer, wielding up to 18 brushes over a canvas. After “seeing” images uploaded to a computer, it renders them through a variety of preprogrammed artistic influences, from Postimpressionism to pop art to combinations thereof, and signs each one. Vangobot’s first gallery opening in Lincoln garnered mixed reviews. “People seem to either love it or loathe it,” Kelly says. Thankfully Vangobot has a thick skin. It has since painted hundreds of pictures and even sold some to Crate & Barrel, whose customers have no clue that a machine was the creative genius behind what’s hanging on their wall.

Vangobot could be made even more ingenious by installing in its program a filter that sifts through Google Images and pinpoints trending topics worthy of its attention. In essence, Marx says, it could paint the visual zeitgeist, tapping into our online collective subconscious for inspiration. Vangobot hasn’t taken that creative leap on a large scale yet, though, being busy with commissioned work. Hey, an artist has to eat—or at least its handlers do. —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

COMEDIAN

Robots outshine humans on many fronts, but they’re not usually credited with a sense of humor. Data—a robot that has done stand-up comedy at TED conferences and on CNN—is trying to change that. Granted, its repertoire of hundreds of wisecracks is programmed. But after delivering a punch line, Data does something unique: It listens to audience reactions for laughter or silence, then adjusts its topic accordingly, much like Pandora and Netflix amend suggestions based on feedback. So if Data’s gag about Swiss Army knives falls flat, it takes note and tries a quip about New Jersey hunters instead.

Manufactured by French company Aldebaran Robotics, Data (originally made for research and education) turned to comedy after an employee named Heather Knight used it while working with clients—then became so enamored of its potential that Aldebaran allowed her to buy it. Knight has gone on to found Marilyn Monrobot, a robot theater company. Currently she’s massaging Data’s body language so it syncs better with its verbal deliveries and improving its ability to “see” audience members so it can gauge whether they’re paying attention. The day Data can generate its own jokes is still far off, although Knight could see it in some limited scenarios: “If Data sees beans on the table, he might crack a fart joke.” Bring on the sitcom deal. —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

PERSONAL TRAINER

It may not be long before a Gymbot orders you to drop and give him 20. Presented in conceptual form at the 2011 International Conference on Social Robotics, the Terminator look-alike would demonstrate exercises like push-ups and squat-thrusts, then watch you with its camera eyes and correct your form. Gymbot’s sensors would also be able to measure your blood pressure, heart rate, and body-fat index. We only hope it has an off switch for those days you bring home a bucket of KFC. —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

WAITER

Robots can’t spit in your soup if you’re rude. That’s just one of many benefits diners are finding in a restaurant staffed by androids that take orders, deliver dishes, dance to keep customers entertained, and even flirt by batting their mechanical eyes. They’re punctual, polite, and don’t accept tips, even though they deserve big ones. Far from simple publicity stunts, they make sound business sense, says Zhang Yong Pei, chair of China’s Shandong Dalu Technology and owner of Dalu Robot Restaurant, which is run by 20 bots and a few human chefs (whose days may be numbered).

Before becoming a robot restaurateur, Zhang owned a human-staffed eatery but became frustrated with the flakiness of his 80 employees. “If you don’t give them a raise, they will leave,” he says. Robot waiters, in contrast, cost a flat $3,200 to $4,700 depending on their skills and should last at least 10 years. Four or five of them can serve up to 300 customers at a time with a smile and zero drama. “Robots are very efficient and won’t get moody,” Zhang says. So far, restaurants in Singapore and the US have ordered their own models. So don’t be surprised if they start serving up bytes near you. —J.D. (with additional reporting by Momo Chang)

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

NURSE

During your next doctor’s appointment, don’t be surprised if you hear a small suitcase-sized robot mutter “Excuse me” as it scurries past towing a tray full of urine samples. That’s TUG—currently employed at 150 US hospitals and a possible solution to the worldwide nursing shortage. Manufactured by Aethon, TUG relieves nurses of the time-consuming task of picking up and delivering medication and supplies, autonomously navigating hospital hallways thanks to a stored memory of a building’s layout. Sensors enable TUG to summon an elevator, wait in line, and politely roll aside to give hemorrhaging humans priority access, while a thumbprint ID ensures its store of painkillers won’t get pilfered for recreational purposes. —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

ATHLETE

Ready to sweat? Robots are running marathons, shooting pool, and even beating us at Ping-Pong. The most ambitious among them, though, convene at RoboCup, an annual competition that aims to build a team of humanoid soccer-playing robots that will win the World Cup (against humans) by 2050. Not that Lionel Messi should retire anytime soon; the fastest two-legged robots travel less than 1 mile per hour. —J.D.

Illustration: Andrew Rae

Robot Replacement

TEACHER

In 2004 toddlers at a California preschool were introduced to a new teacher named RUBI, which was about their size with plastic eyes and a screen on its tummy. Equipped with microphone ears and software that could recognize and respond to human emotional sounds, RUBI taught them 10 new vocabulary words, uttering “Excellent!” or dancing every time someone piped up with the right answer. In two weeks, RUBI increased the students’ word mastery by 25 percent. Only no one said being a substitute teacher was easy: On the first day of class, a few overzealous toddlers tore RUBI’s arm off. —J.D.